reviews from the music vault: new bomb turks

I'm going to be doing some music blogging over at 100 Records. Check that site out, Tesco and friends have some great records posted there as well as a ton of mp3s.

I'm also going to be doing daily "reviews" of random CDs I pull out of this huge Rubbermaid container of music next to my desk. They aren't reviews so much as.....musings.

I'm starting out writing about Destroy Oh Boy, the 1993 debut album from New Bomb Turks.

Destroy-Oh-Boy! is the kind of full-on flamethrower album that could make the most jaded cynic believe once again in the curative powers of punk rock. On this set, the New Bomb Turks combine 1950s and 1960s roots rock at it's rawest, '70s punk at it's snottiest, and '80s hardcore at it's most intense.

People like to slap a punk label on the band, but I don't see New Bomb as punk rock so much as pure rock and roll with a twist of punk. Kind of like chasing a glass of Jack Daniels with a shot of tequila. And then eating the worm.

Fast, furious and full of high fueled energy, Destroy Oh Boy is the kind of music you listen to while imagining yourself doing 150 down a freeway with a beer between your legs and an unfiltered cigarette hanging out of your lips, mountains and exit signs turned to blurs as your hands drum the steering wheel, trying to keep up to the beat.

Or maybe you're in an oil stained garage that's been cleared out to make just enough room for your friend's band and there's a dozen people crowded in there stinking like sweat and shitty beer and the feedback is bouncing off the walls and the shirtless guys are bouncing off each other and when you step outside for a smoke you can still feel the concrete shake.

That's Destroy-Oh-Boy.

Says the turtle:

The first time I heard this album, I was in a college radio station sneaking beer in to the back cause the DJ said I couldn't bring liquor in. He put this on and I melted. This was the greatest punk rock record I had ever heard. Maybe it was the beer we snuck in or the cold ribs we were eating or maybe it was mixture of both, but when the first riff hit, I stopped and listened. "I had a friend he said he was an artist..." That grabbed me. You could tell they were having fun. And on a boring night in a boring town at a boring radio statio....this shit etched into my head. This was rock and roll.